


They Want to Burn the World (And Now You're Asking Why)

by lostandlonelybirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)



Category: Batman (Comics), Nightwing (Comics), Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Violence, Bruce Wayne's Morality is Questioned, Dark Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson-centric, Dick Kills the Joker, Dubious Morality, Joker: The Last Laugh, Like what if DC wasn't cowardly, Morally Ambiguous Character, Murder, Protective Dick Grayson, Questioning the Bat, and Dick stuck with his anger, no beta we die like the joker finally did, or Dick's journey to the less good side of crimefighting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-02-22 12:48:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22749886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RUNNFROMTHEAK/pseuds/lostandlonelybirds
Summary: “Aw…jeez…I hit Jason a lot harder than that.”And that fucking clown looks Dick dead in the eyes, smiling despite the swollen eyes and bruises, smiling despite the anger Dick is radiating that sent most running. The Joker smiles, blinking in an almost innocent way as Dick stands over him, fists clenched tight enough to hurt…“His name was Jason, right?”*Dick doesn't let CPR stop him from avenging his family, and everything changes.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & Joker (DCU), Tim Drake & Dick Grayson
Comments: 103
Kudos: 640





	1. look at what you made (an ugly world, a pretty grave)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firefright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Wrong Step in the Right Direction](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17021790) by [firefright](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firefright/pseuds/firefright). 



> Hello!!!  
> The wonderful firefright wrote this amazing piece called Wrong Step in the Right Direction focusing on the aftermath of Dick actually killing the Joker!!! I loved the way they did it, and wanted to do my own spin on it too!! Mine will be different than theirs, but I definitely recommend their piece for some high quality JayDick content with Lost Days Jason and Dick!!!  
> I have no clue how long this is going to be yet, my ideas are not being tagged yet because this literally popped into my head today!! We shall see where it does from here!!

_“Jeez, Wing-nut…You look like somebody died. Oh, that’s right, you **lost another little brother** recently, didn’t you?”_

Dick Grayson’s never been an angry man. He strives to be a force for justice over vengeance, to not let his rage rule him, to be better than his baser instincts…

But he’s human, and he has his breaking points. Slade Wilson’s nightmarish assault on his team has been one of them, and this…

“ _See, I was planning on having Batman kill me…suicide by superhero, see? I’m dying anyway, right? So why not get a little blood on his cape in the process? But **revenge** once removed is sweeter. It’d really put a twist in his Kevlar if one of his litter did the dirty deed. So…you up for a little homicide, handsome? Are you **mad** enough? Big and bad enough?”_

This is another one.

He can’t tell the precise minute he registers the Joker’s words, realizes what that little twinkle in his eyes means – a challenge, a _‘I hit your little brother harder when I killed him, I didn’t hold back.’_

He has triggers, everyone in the superhero game does, but none of them have ever hit quite as hard as the Robin costume ripped and bloody a few feet away, the costume that could be Tim’s, or it could be Jason’s.

None of his triggers have ever brought him as close to the edge as the Joker’s laughter, his bubbling, uncontrollable laughter as he taunts and babbles and gloats, nothing feels quite as good as the Joker’s face bruising beneath his fists…

“ _Hurts so good. But I still don’t think you want it enough. Where’s that **killer** instinct, Buffalo Wing? Where’s the rage? Look, if you can’t manage this, I’m sure Papa Bat is on the way. He’ll help me along to the big adios. Imagine how mad he’ll be if I’ve whacked **two boy wonders** on the same day!”_

He catches the Joker’s punch and delivers a few of his own, sending Joker flying to the concrete. He coughs, a small trail of blood leaking down his grinning mouth. There’s a moment where Dick calms, calms his rage into righteousness, his thirst for vengeance into a desire for justice. There’s a moment, as he slams Joker down once more, as more blood spills past the Clown Prince’s lips, that he can almost suppress the thought of the Joker’s corpse.

“ _Aw…jeez…I hit **Jason** a lot harder than that.”_

And that _fucking_ clown looks Dick dead in the eyes, smiling despite the swollen eyes and bruises, smiling despite the anger Dick is radiating that sent most running. The Joker smiles, blinking in an almost innocent way as Dick stands over him, fists clenched tight enough to _hurt_ …

“ _His name was **Jason** , right?”_

Maybe he’d known it would end like this before those words had left Joker’s mouth.

Maybe he’d known the second he’d found out Joker _didn’t_ have a terminal illness, that he _wasn’t_ going to die. What had he said to Babs? “ _I could **make** him terminal…He’s already won. You were right…Babs…he wins everytime.”_

Maybe he’d known the second he’d stormed the Gotham Cathedral armed only with his escrima sticks and his rage, and he’d been allowed entrance by the Joker’s goons.

Maybe it had been fate, retribution for Jason’s murder. Or maybe Dick was _sick_ of the Joker always winning.

“ _Shoulda’ videod this ooooh.”_

But Dick doesn’t hear him anymore, doesn’t hear anything outside of the quickfire tempo as his heart picks up, blood rushing in his ears. He doesn’t hear anything outside of his own labored breathing, the sound of him losing control.

“ _His name was **Jason** , right?”_

It’s encouragement, feeding into his dark impulse as his head pounds and pounds and pounds…

“ _His name was **Jason** , right?”_

He hits the Joker, hits him harder than he should, hits him the way Batman trained him _not_ to hit, the way Slade had encouraged him to hit. He hits him until he hears the first _crack_ , feels the first rib break as Joker falls apart beneath his fists.

“ _Aw…jeez…I hit **Jason** a lot harder than that.”_

He can picture his brother’s screams, the way Jason would break under Joker’s unique torture, alone, before looking death in the eyes and being blown up.

Never again.

Tim…

It shouldn’t have taken more than Jason.

He should’ve been better, tried harder…

“ _Dick?!”_

He doesn’t stop when Joker’s blood soaks his Elvis costume and colors Dick’s face.

He doesn’t stop when Bruce and the others gain entrance, fighting for his attention.

“ _Nightwing, **stop**.”_

And when Bruce tries to pull him off of Joker’s corpse, tries to begin CPR, Dick launches himself at Bruce and snags a batarang off his belt.

He stabs it through where the Joker’s unbeating heart lays, once, twice, three times…

Until Spoiler and Huntress manage to drag him off.

“ _Dick…I’m alive!”_

He looks from Tim’s concerned expression to Helena’s satisfaction and Bruce’s horror.

“I…you were dead…”

Tim squeezes his arm, avoiding the tears and blood-splattered areas.

“It was just a sick mind illusion…”

“But that,” Bruce interrupts, glaring at the Joker’s corpse, “Is _not_.”

Spoiler reaches around Dick and Tim to take the madman’s pulse.

“He’s…dead.”

Bruce whirls around to face Dick, eyes every bit as cold as they’d been when Dick had confronted him about Jason.

“What the _hell_ did you do, Nightwing? We _don’t_ kill!”

Dick’s head hangs, bloody batarang clutched tight to his chest.

“I…I did what I had to do, B. I’m not sorry.”

“You killed a man, you _broke_ our _code_.”

“But it’s Joker!” Helena protests, “He’s a _monster_ , he _deserved_ to die.”

Batman turns to glare at her.

“That’s not for _us_ to decide, Huntress. We cannot be Judge, Jury, and Executioner.”

Huntress glares right back at him, mouth set in a thin line. She doesn’t say anything else.

Dick should feel guilt.

Dick should feel regret.

Dick should feel… _something_.

But he feels happy.

He feels relieved.

And most of all, he feels numb.

“Lock me up, Bruce.” He says, holding his arms out for his mentor to handcuff. “I broke your code, and no matter what I say, you’re never going to trust me again.”

Bruce clenches and unclenches his jaw; a sign of stress Dick had picked up on after a few weeks at Wayne Manor. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to say something, anything, but he just slaps handcuffs on Dick and hands him off to Spoiler and Huntress.

“Escort him back to the Cave, the League and I will discuss his fate.”

(Dick clutches the batarang just a bit tighter, finding comfort in the Joker’s murder weapon)

“Holy shit,” one cop says as they exit the Cathedral, “The Joker’s dead!”

Dick looks back to find Joker cradled in Batman’s arms like a bride, or a young child.

The smile is still on his face, and his last laugh still caught in his throat.

“ _His name was **Jason** , right?”_

Dick holds his head high.

He killed the Joker, and he doesn’t feel a thing.


	2. i can see through the tears (but all i see is red)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death is cruel, he knows this.  
> Bruce is contradictory, he knows this too.
> 
> He knows death intimately, as a warning and a punishment, as a crime and as a means others use, but Bruce had never told him how it felt – the smell, the taste, the sensation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello!!! I updated a wip be proud!!!! I have some ideas, so I'm excited that school is cancelled for the next few weeks!!! I also have another one-shot I'm working on based on the Anti-Life equation, so keep an eye out for that!!! Love you guys!!!

Dick knows death intimately, in ways only those touched by her can, those _taunted_ by her can. Perhaps it’s like Batman’s relationship with the Joker; something irrational, visceral and poignant and _wrong_. It’s something not easily explained, something not easily understood, but it is _intimate,_ and it is _part of him_ no matter how much he wishes it wasn’t. He imagines Bruce feels the same about Joker, that some small part of the man is relieved to never look at his twisted reflection again (“ _One bad day is all that separates people like **you** from people like **me** , and I’ll prove it to you all. Anyone can be me, and I can be anyone. You aren’t **special** , Batsy, you’re **lucky**.”_).

Death has courted him since childhood, in many different ways.

On the night of his parent’s death, he was meant to perform with them. He’d been nervous and hesitant, a bad feeling in his gut killing the burst of adrenaline and joy he’d normally get performing for crowds.

_“You just watch for now, my little Robin, and join us in the second act. It will all be alright, I promise.”_

She’d died with his name on her lips and death in her eyes; shattered and broken and bloody in a way they’d actively defied as an act, for entertainment.

‘ _I could have died,’_ He’d thought as cops pulled him from their corpses, and a more sober, ‘ _Maybe I was meant to_.’

‘ _Death-Defying’_ their act had been called, and to a young boy seeing the broken forms his parents had warned him of, it seemed death had grown tired of their defiance and demanded to be heard. Zucco was a puppet, and his mistress was far crueler.

Since Dick couldn’t hurt a concept, he hurt the puppet and vowed to not let death win again.

“ _You’re good, kid, but I’ll tell you a secret – **I’m better**.”_

His next brush with death came as a failure, a body’s failing and a cruel puppet’s dark intentions, the same story that death had demanded for his parents’ defiance. He isn’t fast enough, isn’t strong enough, and the woman dies by a hired gun who wears _Death_ as a badge of honor. A stroke of death, and an innocent woman’s brains splatter the alleyway walls. Deathstroke.

He hates him before he knows his name, hates him as he stares into his dual-colored mask and emotionless slants he sees through.

Stroke of death, another punishment for his defiance. This one is more consistent, more persistent, and he hates him in ways he’s never hated anyone. It’s obsessive, consuming, but each time he grapples with Slade, each time he comes out less and less unscathed feels like a personal victory, like another _defiance_ of death.

Death is less present with Bruce, more corroding, lingering in the dark halls of Wayne Manor.

“ _We don’t kill, Dick. Not ever.”_

It is the only rule he’s given at first, the one bold line he’s told to not tread. To not cross. Dick almost does with Zucco, seven as he is, angry as he feels – but Bruce stops him. He doesn’t kill, and he never kills. They don’t kill, because that’s what separates them from those they fight. It makes perfect sense, in the way that it makes no sense at all.

He accepts it because he hates death and her puppets, even as he sees Wonder Woman kill, even as he sees others hailed as heroes kill.

Death is cruel, he knows this.

Bruce is contradictory, he knows this too.

He knows death intimately, as a warning and a punishment, as a crime and as a means others use, but Bruce had never told him how it felt – the _smell_ , the _taste_ , the _sensation_.

He knew how it looked, knew the crimson-painted pictures found down dark alleyways, the broken bones and echoed screams free-falling in the air, infinitely suspended in nightmares.

He knew how it smelt afterward, the scent of decay and desecration, break downs and attempts to preserve an empty corpse void of breath and heart. A coffin made of skin, where life had thrived.

He knew the ways of death too, ways through puppets and ways through misfortune. He could count them, the lethal areas and ways to kill a man, but he only knew avoidance, hesitance, as the Bat never allied himself with death.

Bruce had never described the pure satisfaction as the victim chokes for air, breathing staggered and liquid, bubbling to the surface like nervous laughter – hesitant, quieted.

Bruce had never described the taste of blood on your tongue when you bite down, adrenaline and pure rage warring enough to make you _shake_. He’d never told him of the taste of a kill, knowing they’d never come back.

Bruce had never described the metallic smell permeating the air – surrounding him, encapsulating him. It consumes him, in the moment, in the red haze and the rumble of a demon shoved deep under the surface, a demon who’d almost pushed Zucco off a roof at age seven.

“ _His name was Jason, right?_ ”

He’d known death intimately, in a way Batman had known the Joker, but now he knows death _better._

He is death, knows her end, her desires. He’s dealt death, and before killing he’d never known why Bruce had said he couldn’t stop at one.

“ _You can’t just stop at one, Robin. It’s too easy to go further, to keep adjusting your line and make it easier to cross. It’s simple. If you kill a killer the amount of killers in the world does not change, and if you kill more than one… I can’t cross that line. **You** can’t cross that line.”_

It’s seductive, and even as he feels the slow-steady march of guilt thrumming in his chest, feels the weight of death and strings tied to his heart ( _he’d sworn to defy her, to not be her puppet, to never aid her_ —) there’s a satisfaction, a _joy_ in the blood spilled, the snow-white pallor coloring his gloves from when he’d beaten the Joker’s skin red. It’s temptation, and it cries to him, screams at him, and he knows it would be easy to give in again. To justify it again.

_“Lock me up, Bruce.”_ He’d said, holding his arms out for his mentor to handcuff. “ _I broke your code, and no matter what I say, you’re never going to trust me again.”_

He doesn’t feel anything, but he feels _everything_ too. He feels numb and he feels the blood splattered across his face tingle, feels it sting, like a prolonged acid or poison they’d all believed made up the Joker. He feels calm and he feels frantic, feels the vow break in his head as images of death’s demands replay behind his closed lids. He feels satisfaction and he feels regret, small and contained, but steady and present.

He needs to think, needs to breathe, and he can’t do that with Bruce, or with _anyone_.

Tim protests the suggestion, but one look from Bruce has him silent.

Tim’s a far more obedient Robin than Jason and Dick, at least in sight of Bruce.

Barbara Gordon’s angry face is the first thing to greet Dick as he’s escorted out of the Batmobile, cuffs still tight around his wrist. He flexes his fingers, one at a time, testing them out. He’s not going to break out, there wouldn’t be a point, but it’s always good to know your exits. He knows these cuffs well, and it would take him a few minutes or less.

“Oracle,” Batman says in a gruff voice, a clear dismissal, but the redhead just wheels right over to the Dark Knight and stabs her finger into his chest, uncaring of the height difference.

“What the hell Bruce?! I told you to _help_ him, to stop him from doing something he’d regret, and you bring him back in **handcuffs**?!”

“He killed,” delivered in that cold, detached tone. “He broke my code. He needs to be punished for it.”

Babs looks murderous.

“He needs to be punished for taking the man who took Jason from us? The man who paralyzed me and has murdered thousands for _laughs_?!”

She forces his attention to Jason’s case, ‘ _A Good Soldier’_

“That man that Dick killed took _your son_ from us. That case is only up because of that damn clown, and I guarantee you no one else is grieving him.”

Bruce hates reminders of Jason, even if he’s built one into his cave.

Bruce glowers, shoving past her and making his way toward the computers.

“Huntress, Spoiler, secure him in the cell. The League’s holding a meeting on how to address this matter, and where to hold him.”

Stephanie’s hold is light, and she squeezes his bicep when she grabs his arm.

“Boss, you sure this is the way you want to take it?”

He hears the question she means to ask, ‘ _is this really happening?’_.

“It has to be,” Bruce answers. Dick doesn’t disagree.

“I told you to help him,” Barbara repeats, “and instead you’re locking him up?”

“Dick has agreed, he knew the consequences when he killed.”

Babs assesses Bruce briefly, a quick scan she normally gives to her computer screen, analyzing, deconstructing –

“If this is your form of help, it’s no wonder Jason didn’t feel comfortable enough to ask for it!”

It’s a low blow, and Stephanie and Helena, who hadn’t known Jason outside of the memorial and gravestone wince.

Bruce is ice cold with Babs, not explosive or fiery the way she is, the way she clearly wants him to. His fists clench, and he forces himself to calm, but Dick can still see the rage in his eyes.

“I will be with the League. Lock him up.”

Dick locks himself in the cell, looking at the memorial while the others murmur amongst themselves. As he drifts, the madman's death replays in his mind, every choke and gasp and broken laugh vivid, exactly as he remembered.

“ _His name was Jason, right?”_

At least Joker is finally dead.

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts?


End file.
